Rafa Misses Out On Manager Of The Month

Written by Dr. Ed Harrison

8:12am Friday, March 10th, 2017

Commented 31 times

Huddersfield manager David Wagner has been named Sky Bet Championship Manager of the Month for February and he deserves the award for guiding the Terriers in that time to five wins and one draw in the six games played in the Championship.

Rafa Benitez was a finalist, but wasn’t expected to win as Rafa had four wins and three draws in the Championship in our seven games played last month.

David Wagner – Manager of the Month for February Of course interestingly enough the first game in March was a 3-1 win for Newcastle at Huddersfield last Saturday.

David Wagner is a top young manager who was Jurgen Klopp’s assistant at Borussia Dortmund until he left the club for the Terriers on 5th November, 2015.

He’s done wonders in a short 16 months at Huddersfield including a win at Liverpool in the FA Cup 3rd round against his former boss Jurgen Klopp.

David also won Manager of the Month in August after four wins and a draw including a 2-1 win against Newcastle at St. James’ Park in the second game of the season.

The other two nominations for Manager of the Month for February were Garry Monk of Leeds United and Fulham’s Slavisa Jokanovic.

Thought he began the season great, scoring quality goals, looking like he was on course to having a successful loan spell ready to come back here and stake his claim. That only lasted a third of the season, middle third he’s gone missing and his trajectory doesn’t seem to be making an upturn any time soon. Started plenty of matches lately and not done much of note.

General play could be good as can’t say I’ve seen much of him, but Barnsley fans were enamoured early season and even they’re cooling their praise.

HWA, Like my self and Bobbybee keep pointing out when people are saying that we should not have dropped any points, conceded any goals and scored at least three a game, take a look at the clubs that came down with us one of whim spent 70M pounds and hired a “CL” winning manager. We’d have done what some say Ashley saved us from but has been threataning to do for years and done the metaphorical Leeds.

Let’s hope for a big performance from the team, tomorrow! Please, not another ‘After the Lord Mayor’s Show’! Crowd will be up for it, we need to start well, after Ginger Pirlo has passed back to Lascelles, back to Darlow, of course!! 😀

WW…, From NUFC.com One of a small number of players to win a permanent contract and become a first team regular following a trial, Pav arrived on Tyneside from Banik Ostrava in January 1991 during Jim Smith’s time at the helm.

With the club for an initial month, Pav made a handful of reserve appearances, impressing enough for United to complete a permanent transfer at a cost of £350K.

Former soldier Pav had begun his playing career with army sides Dukla Tabor and Dukla Prague and was capped at U21 level by the Czech Republic.

Although signed by Smith, Srnicek’s first team bow was under newly-appointed boss Ossie Ardiles, in a 1-0 home victory over Sheffield Wednesday that April.

Becoming a popular figure with fans and players alike, Pav remained at SJP and played under both Kevin Keegan and Kenny Dalglish in the following six seasons, inlcuding United’s Premier League bow against Spurs at Gallowgate in August 1993.

He was also in goal as the Magpies returned to European competition in spectacular style the following season, beating Royal Antwerp by an aggregate 10-2 scoreline.

And the Czech custodian took his place in the side at SJP on October 20th 1996 for a memorable game that ended Newcastle United 5 Manchester United 0.

Pav’s time in Toon drew to a close though in the 1997/98 season following the arrival of Shay Given and he had just one senior outing, at home to Blackburn Rovers when Given was away on international duty.

Confined to a non-playing substitute role thereafter, he lost out to Shaka Hislop for the bench spot at Wembley in the FA Cup Final loss that year (he had appeared for United in the 1996 Charity Shield at that venue).

Following a brief return to Banik, Pav joined Sheffield Wednesday and made his Owls debut in a 1-1 draw at SJP in November 1998 – well-received by his former supporters as he would be when facing United on two other occasions (thankfully he was an unused sub for our 8-0 beating of the Owls in September 1999).

Spells in Italy for Brescia and Cosenza were followed by further service in England at Portsmouth and West Ham and a period training with Coventry City. His next stop was a non-playing spell with Czech side FC Opava before reappearing with Beira Mar in Portugal.

And it was a case of “Pavel is a Geordie” again in October 2006 when injuries to Tim Krul, Given and Steve Harper caused then-boss Glenn Roeder to bring the free agent back to SJP on a short-term deal – Pav initially thinking that contact from Harper was a wind-up!

Pav duly made his 150th league appearance for United – some nine years after the 149th – appearing from the bench in place of Given for the last three minutes of the 3-1 home win over Spurs in December 2006.

Needless to say, his arrival was greeted by an ear splitting roar from the Gallowgate faithful.

He then played the full 90 minutes of the next game at Bolton on Boxing Day, remaining at the club for the rest of the season without adding to his appearance total – playing twice more for the reserves.

That saw him conclude a second spell as a Magpie, having made 190 appearances (187 starts) in all competitions.

After a short spell coaching in the North East, Srnicek returned to the Czech Republic with Ostrava before becoming Sparta Prague’s goalkeeping coach in 2012.

Internationally, Srnicek made 49 appearances for his country beginning with a 0-0 draw against Malta in October 1994 and concluding in November 2001 – winning 19 caps during his time at Gallowgate.

Having appeared along with his former “Entertainers” team mates in a charity match at Kingston Park in October 2011, September 2013 then saw Pav return to Gallowgate for Steve Harper’s match.

2015 saw him on Tyneside for talk-ins and the publication of his autobiography in November of that year.

Shortly after returning to the Czech Republic however, Srnicek collapsed whilst out running in Ostrava, suffering a cardiac arrest.

Hospitalised, he spent just over a week in an induced coma before brain scans revealed that he had suffered irreversible damage.

Pav’s family took the unenviable decision to switch off life support systems and he died on December 29th – news of his passing prompting a flood of tributes from former Magpie colleagues and fans alike.

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health update

My latest bone scans and CAT scans were completed this week and I met with my oncologist Dr. Dhruva to go over the results.

The stage four cancer remains stabilized and hasn't spread over the last six months.

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in early 2017 after being in remission for six years.

There is no cure for stage 4 cancer - but there are treatments which attempt to prolong life.

I am upbeat with the results and remain in awe of the doctors and nurses at the Rex Cancer Center here in Raleigh, North Carolina

It's truly humbling to see how inspiring they are with their patients.

Ed Harrison

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